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The invention involves a device for making chewing gum with a mixer, in which chewing gum base material, so called xe2x80x9cgum basexe2x80x9d is kneaded and mixed with flavoring and/or coloring agents, and/or other compounds.
Devices of this type are known in the prior-art. Usually they involve mixers that cut and mix the gum base and the correspondingly weighed in components with Z-arm kneaders for approx. 20 to 30 minutes. The temperature of the kneaded mixture is kept at approx. 45 to 50xc2x0 C. in the process, by a preliminary heating of the mixer casing. Only at the end of the process are the flavoring agents added to get the chewing gum material.
The chewing gum material is then supplied in batches to the forming extruders, and then it is cooled, shaped and packaged.
These described devices have a series of disadvantages: on the one hand, because of the long mixing times, large and thus accordingly expensive kneading machines are necessary in order ensure a certain output rate. This also causes a high spatial requirement for the equipment, and simultaneously high investments.
In addition, the gum base as well as chewing gum material are very sticky and thus can only be incompletely emptied from these prior-art mixers without manual operation. This leads not only to product entrainments from one batch to the next, but also the cleaning expense during a product change is very high in these types of mixers.
The kneaders used with Z-arms also have only a limited mixing effect, which is why the homogeneity, the consistency, and the color of the chewing gum created can fluctuate from batch to batch. This leads not only to quality losses, but also has effects in the packaging machines that are subsequently connected. These machines require precise product properties and sizes, in order to obtain a level of efficiency of around 100%. When there are fluctuating product properties, the level of efficiency of the entire system can easily drop by up to 50%.
The long holding time in the mixer and the only limited mixing effect in spite of that, lead to either undesired loss of expensive flavoring agents by evaporation, etc. or to an increased requirement of these materials. In order to counteract this, the production must be monitored more closely so as to increase need for personnel.
The purpose of the invention presented here is thus to provide a device for making chewing gum, which avoids the disadvantages described above. In particular, it should be a better value and ensure a more uniform product quality.
This purpose is achieved according to the invention in that the mixer provided is a high-speed shearing mixer that is flowed through in the axial direction, in which many ring-shaped stator parts are arranged on the inner wall of an essentially cylinder-shaped housing, said stator parts projecting radially to the inside and meshing with radial outside ends of rotating mixing blades while forming grinding gaps.
The advantage of the invention is that on the one hand, a continuous manufacture of chewing gum is possible with this mixer. Furthermore, the high-speed shearing mixer can also have a smaller total volume. As a result of that, small product entrainments are not to be expected between the individual batches, in particular because a high-speed shearing mixer of this type is also simple to clean. The machine also has only a smaller spatial requirement and since a more continuous process, which is possible with the device according to the invention, is easier to monitor, this also results in lower total personnel costs.
In an especially preferred embodiment form, the stator parts are also provided with teeth, so that the mixing can be done especially quickly and intensively.
It is proposed that the high-speed shearing mixer has a ratio of length to diameter (L/D) of xe2x89xa64, which represents a small spatial requirement of a mixer of this type. A product holding time in the mixer of less than 30 sec. is also to be achieved, so that in total, a higher flow rate through the mixer is possible.
The high-speed shearing mixer according to the invention can also have a feed area connected upstream in the housing, in which the possible tangentially supplied basic substances are deflected in their flow into an axial direction and in which these basic substances can be pre-mixed and possibly preliminarily reduced.
So that the entire high-speed shearing mixer can be used for the intensive blending of the individual components of the chewing gum compound, it is proposed to provide a supply line in the feed area prior to the high-speed shearing mixer, through which the flavoring and/or coloring agents of the chewing gum compound are and/or sugar are added to the gum base.
In the device according to the invention, an additional temperature sensor is provided at the outlet of the high-speed shearing mixer. The measurement value of this temperature sensor is processed in a motor control. Via this motor control, the rotational speed of the high-speed shearing mixer is to be regulated, i.e. in particular the rotational speed of a rotor shaft, which carries the mixing blades rotating in the high-speed shearing mixer. Also, the drive output for the rotor shaft can be processed in the motor control, whereby for the rotational speed adjustment, preferably a frequency converter is used, with which the rotational speed of the drive motor is controlled. This drive motor preferably involves a three-phase current motor.
The necessary rotational speed of the rotor shaft is dependent on the product recipe, the particle size of the gum base and the output. Larger gum base particles require higher rotational speed than smaller particles, likewise the rotational speed increases proportionally with the output.
The high-speed shearing mixer described here operates for chewing gum depending on the recipe, size of the gum base particles and the output with Froude numbers that are between 18 and 400. This Froude number is determined in the process as follows:
Fr=v2/(rxc2x7g)
v=circumferential speed [m/sec]
r=radius of the mixing blades g [m]
g=acceleration due to gravity [m/seC2]
It has been discovered that with a device of this type, the chewing gum material in the high-speed shearing mixer may have temperatures in the range from 50 to 75xc2x0 C., which is achieved by the dissipation of the drive energy in the product. Because of the short holding time mentioned above, this high temperature has no negative effects with regard to prejudices that have been published in the state of the art. Moreover, products generated with the device according to the invention have achieved better properties in regard to the homogeneity, their sensory (organoleptic) properties and also their handling capacity during packaging, than in the methods previously known in the prior art.
Also, the losses in odorous and flavoring agents are smaller than in the traditional processes, whereby in this context it has been proposed to connect a cooling device after the mixer in order to prevent undesired evaporation of these types of aromas from out of the chewing gum compound, which emerges warm from out of the high-speed shearing mixer.
A cooling device of this type can involve cooling rollers or even a cooled shaping extruder.
So that the device described can also have a constant output over longer time periods, it is proposed in addition to connect a controllable dosing device prior to the mixer, with which the solid components are continuously supplied. Also, the liquid additions such as flavoring and coloring agents are added via a controllable dosing device.